Focusing on work doesn’t come easy when you feel like you can’t be yourself. And, it’s even harder to build momentum in work or life in general when you don’t feel supported, or are lacking the community of others like you. LC Johnson found these issues to be especially true, and she gathered all her prior studies and career experience to create a co-working space for women of color called Zora’s House. “It’s a safe space where women can bring all of their messy, vulnerable, authentic truths AND be rooting in their identity as black and brown and Indigenous women,” LC shares. “That’s so much more rare than most people know. I created this space because I needed it for myself and couldn’t find it.”
LC’s path to launching Columbus, OH-based Zora’s House in April 2018 has always been centered around amplifying the voices of women of color and supporting and encouraging the talents of others. “I graduated from Duke University in 2010 with a degree in Women’s Studies,” she tells us. “My career has been focused around topics of women of color leadership, entrepreneurship, and authenticity as a youth educator, curriculum developer, and program director in the non-profit sector.”
LC started a blog called Colored Girl Confidential, a place where she compiled her wisdom and motivation to empower women of color to grow their skills and be their happiest selves — and in January 2015 published the book Colored Girl Confidential: A Colored Girl’s Guide to Kicking Ass in Work, Love and Life. “CGC started as a way for me to process my own journey as a young professional woman of color and ultimately became a healing space, not only for me, but for women of color around the country on their own journeys of self-discovery,” she says. “CGC taught me about community building in tangible, powerful ways — the need for community, how it gets shaped, and how it gets maintained. All of these lessons are ones I use every day in bringing the Zora’s House vision to life.”
Now LC’s lessons are employed daily at Zora’s House, a gathering place for women of color that’s part social club, part co-working studio, and part workshop and event space. Today we’re honored to have LC share her journey in starting Zora’s House, the lessons she’s learned along the way, advice for creatives who want to try out co-working spaces, and more. —Kelli
Photography by Megan Leigh Barnard Photography
Image above: LC Johnson at work in the co-working/event space she founded, Zora’s House.
Image above: Kaydian Comer and Melissa Bryant, two Zora’s House Ambassadors. LC says, “We have a great team of Ambassadors who support the work and help shape the community. These are the women who are in the space day in and day out.”
from Design*Sponge https://www.designsponge.com/2018/07/zoras-house.html
from Home Improvment http://notelocreesnitu.tumblr.com/post/176265383559
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